The Torchwood Institute was created in 1879 by order of Queen Victoria. Its
mission: to safeguard the British Isles from extraterrestrial incursion,
and to acquire alien technology for the benefit of the Empire.

The Torchwood producer's chair was originally slated to be
filled by Doctor Who director James Hawes, who was forced to
leave the project when the start of filming on Torchwood shifted
from January to May 2006. He was replaced by Richard
Stokes. On some occasions when multiple episodes were being
filmed simultaneously, assistant producer Sophie
Fante was promoted to full producer as well. The executive
producers, as with Doctor Who, were Julie
Gardner and Russell T Davies.

A serial killer is on the loose in Cardiff. At the scene of one of the
stabbings, PC Gwen Cooper is shocked as she witnesses one of the victims
being brought briefly back to life by a mysterious group of
investigators known only as Torchwood. Becoming obsessed with Torchwood
and its leader, Captain Jack Harkness, Gwen finds herself spiralling
into a world of terrifying monsters and alien artefacts which may change
her life forever.

When Torchwood investigates a meteor impact, Gwen accidentally looses an
alien entity contained within, which feeds on the energies of sexual
climax. The creature possesses a young woman named Carys Fletcher, who
must now kill men through intercourse or perish herself. With Jack, Tosh
and Owen fixated only on the alien being, it is up to Gwen to try to
save Carys' life.

Gwen recovers an errant piece of alien technology which provides
glimpses into the past. While experimenting with the device, Owen
witnesses an horrific rape and murder which has gone unsolved for more
than four decades. As the rest of the Torchwood team investigates the
machine's origins, Owen teeters on obsession with bringing the killer to
justice.

Not all of the humans converted into Cybermen during the last invasion
were killed. One has survived, and she used to be Ianto's girlfriend,
Lisa. Now half-human and half-Cyberman, Lisa has been hidden in the
bowels of the Torchwood Hub until Ianto can find a way to restore her to
the way she was. But can Lisa really be saved -- or is she lost to him
forever?

In a neighbourhood near an ancient Cardiff wood, strange forces are at
work. A paedophile is suffocated by rose petals. School bullies are
assailed by strange winds. Ethereal laughter follows a lonely young
girl. And Jack must confront the seemingly magical creatures whose very
existence seems to be intertwined with his own.

People have been disappearing without a trace in rural Wales, and the
Torchwood team becomes worried that the Rift has widened, spreading
alien activity across the countryside. Investigating, they find a
village seemingly deserted -- leaving behind only bodies, stripped of
their flesh. But are the murderers really extraterrestrial in origin, or
is this a peculiarly human form of horror?

In 1812 Cardiff, a prostitute named Mary fleeing a murderous soldier
comes upon an eerie light. Two centuries later, a body and an alien
device are uncovered on a building site in the city -- and the same
woman is watching the excavation. Soon, Mary has inveigled herself into
Tosh's life, giving her a pendant which allows the wearer to hear
people's thoughts. But what are Mary's true intentions? And can Toshiko
handle the enormous power she now wields?

When a serial killer begins writing the word “Torchwood” in
his victims' blood, Jack reluctantly agrees to let Gwen use the
resurrection glove which had been the undoing of Suzie Costello. Soon,
the words of the dead lead Torchwood to believe that the slayings are
connected to Suzie herself. Jack is faced with the grim prospect of
allowing the glove to be used one more time -- to revive his former
friend and betrayer.

A twentysomething UFO spotter named Eugene Jones awakens to discover
that he's dead -- the apparent victim of a hit-and-run accident -- and
invisible to the living. His recent past a mystery to himself, Eugene is
desperate to uncover the events which led up to his demise. But he's not
the only one: Gwen Cooper has also become absorbed by Eugene's strange
case, and stands as the dead man's only hope.

An airplane slips through a rift in time, bringing it from 1953 to the
present day. With no way to return the craft's three passengers to their
proper place in history, the Torchwood team is left with the task of
helping them acclimate themselves to living more than half a century in
their own future. But not everyone is prepared to make the
adjustment.

Jack and Gwen learn that Weevils are being abducted by humans, and soon
discover the body of a man who seems to have been murdered by Weevils.
Owen, still reeling from Diane's departure, is despatched undercover to
investigate, and soon traces the kidnappings to real estate mogul Mark
Lynch. Through Lynch, Owen descends into a sadistic underground world --
but will he be repulsed by this way of life, or embrace it?

While investigating a derelict music hall, Jack and Tosh find themselves
transported back in time to the midst of the Cardiff Blitz in 1941. In
this time period, the music hall is playing host to a group of air force
pilots enjoying their final day of leave -- and much to Toshiko's
astonishment, one of them is named Captain Jack Harkness. Tosh must find
a way to return to the present even as Jack's secrets threaten to come
to light, and a mysterious figure watches the events in both
centuries.

Owen's manipulation of the Rift has perverted time across the globe, and
both past and future are impinging upon the present. Bubonic plague
threatens Cardiff, mighty spaceships hang in the sky, and the dead come
back to haunt the Torchwood team. Gwen realises that the enigmatic Bilis
Manger is the key to these events -- but is he a friend or an enemy? And
what sort of being dwells in the darkness beyond the Rift?

Making History

With the revival of Doctor Who proving enormously successful, it
was decided that the series would make an ideal launching pad for a
spin-off series. Once again under the aegis of Doctor Who
producer Russell T Davies, the groundwork for the adult-oriented
Torchwood was laid at the end of the parent programme's 2006
season, most notably in the climactic Army Of Ghosts / Doomsday.
Bringing back the popular Jack Harkness character from the tail end of
the previous season, Torchwood became a bona fide hit in the UK's
burgeoning digital cable arena, airing on BBC3.

Season Two: The Scurf Of
Yesterday

The Characters

Another former companion of the Doctor's, Martha
Jones was a UNIT doctor seconded to Torchwood to investigate the
Pharm. She briefly remained with the team when Owen Harper's death
deprived them of a medic.

When Jack abruptly reappears after being missing for weeks, the rest of
the Torchwood team reacts with no small degree of suspicion. Matters are
compounded when Jack is soon joined by the roguish Captain John Hart,
his former Time Agent partner, who claims to be tracking three radiation
bombs which have tumbled through the Rift to Cardiff. Accompanied by
Hart, Torchwood splits up to recover the bombs... but can John Hart
really be trusted?

Torchwood is called in to investigate a burglary in which the robbers
have been horribly injured under mysterious circumstances. One of their
victims, Beth, turns out to be an alien sleeper agent -- a soldier
planted on Earth with false memories in order to gather information for
an invasion. With no recollection of her past life, Beth is adamant that
she retain her human persona... but the rest of her sleeper cell has
already been activated.

Stored amongst Torchwood's cryogenic caskets is a World War I soldier
named Tommy Brocklehurst. Revived for just one day every year, Tommy has
gradually developed a close relationship with the normally private
Toshiko. But Tommy has been preserved within Torchwood because, at some
point, he will be the key to preventing past and future from colliding
through the Rift. And when ghosts start appearing in the hospital where
he was once a patient, it appears that Tommy's time is finally up.

One of the lorry drivers for Rhys' haulage company has a fatal traffic
accident. When Rhys arrives on the scene, he's shocked to find Gwen
there with the rest of Torchwood, looking into the discovery of an alien
form of meat within the truck. Frustrated by his fiancee's secrecy, Rhys
conducts an investigation of his own, only to draw Torchwood's suspicion
regarding his own complicity in the mystery.

A creature emerges from the Rift with the power to manipulate memory.
Calling itself “Adam Smith”, it infiltrates Torchwood,
assuming the role of Jack's confidante and Toshiko's lover. But when
Adam's interference causes Gwen to completely forget her relationship
with Rhys, and Jack becomes haunted by memories of his distant
childhood and his lost brother Gray, Ianto slowly realises that
something is very wrong with their erstwhile teammate.

Torchwood begins investigating a series of deaths in which the victims'
blood has been intentionally destroyed. To assist his team, Jack brings
in Martha Jones -- now a fully-fledged doctor and working for UNIT.
Together, they discover that some of the victims had recovered from
normally incurable illnesses after participating in trials of a
mysterious drug called Reset. To learn the true nature of Reset, Martha
agrees to go undercover as a trial volunteer herself.

Out of desperation, Jack retrieves the second resurrection glove and
uses it to revive Owen. But somehow, Owen stays alive, subsisting on
energy drawn from an unknown source -- an energy that's gradually
turning him into something other than human. Still aided by Martha
Jones, and hunted by Weevils who believe Owen to be their master, the
members of Torchwood begin to fear that Owen is being transformed into a
conduit for an entity embodying death itself.

Suspended from duty until Martha can determine exactly what has happened
to him, Owen's life -- such as it is -- is becoming increasingly
unbearable. He's unable to eat, drink, or even heal himself, which means
that any injuries he suffers will be permanent. He can't sleep or have
sex. His entire existence seems pointless. But when Torchwood detects
massive energy readings from the heavily-guarded mansion of an elderly
collector of alien artefacts, it may take a dead man to get to the
bottom of things.

With Owen once again a functioning member of the team, Martha leaves
Torchwood to rejoin UNIT.

The night before her wedding, Gwen suffers a bite from a man-eating,
shape-shifting Nostrovite before Jack manages to kill it. The next
morning, she wakes up to find herself pregnant -- very pregnant. Despite
her unnatural state, Gwen is determined to go ahead with the wedding.
But what she doesn't realise is that the Nostrovite has a mate, and
it's intent on recovering its spawn from Gwen's belly.

Ianto, Gwen and Owen are in the audience at a classic movie theatre when
the film seemingly takes on a life of its own, repeatedly playing clips
of an eerie carnival show from the early twentieth century. Before the
projector can be switched off, two figures from the reel actually step
off the screen and escape into the real world. Jack recognises them as
sinister figures he's encountered before: the Night Travellers, who have
the power to literally drain the breath from a person's body.

Andy, Gwen's former partner on the police force, asks her to look into
the disappearance of a teenaged boy named Jonah some months earlier,
whom surveillance footage depicts as abruptly vanishing into thin air.
Soon, however, Gwen discovers that Jonah is part of an epidemic of
missing persons in the Cardiff area. With Toshiko's help, she determines
that the Rift may lie at the centre of the problem -- but Jack is
strangely adamant that Gwen abandon her investigation.

The Torchwood team is lured into an explosive trap in a deserted
building. As they lay upon the brink of death, their lives -- and
especially how the circumstances of their initiation into Torchwood --
flash before their eyes: Jack is hunted by the Victorian-era Torchwood,
Tosh is blackmailed into stealing government secrets, Ianto pleads for a
job in the wake of Torchwood One's obliteration, and Owen finds himself
involved in a tragic medical mystery.

Captain John Hart sets off Rift events and massive explosions all across
Cardiff, forcing the Torchwood team to split up to handle the crisis.
While Gwen deals with a police force in chaos and Owen attempts to avert
meltdown at a nuclear reactor, Jack confronts John, only to learn that
he is being manipulated by Jack's brother, Gray. Having been tortured
for years by a sadistic alien race, Gray blames Jack for his fate -- and
now desires nothing more than to destroy everything Jack holds dear.

Toshiko is fatally shot by Gray, while Owen dies after being engulfed in
vented radioactive gas to prevent the meltdown.

Making History

With Torchwood proving a monster hit on BBC3 during its initial
run, it was decided to bring the programme back for a second season, and
this time broadcast it on BBC2 (although some episodes would still debut
on BBC3). To further attract viewers, Martha Jones -- who had
accompanied the Doctor throughout Doctor Who's 2007 season -- was
added to the cast list for three episodes. At the end of the year,
Torchwood experienced its first regular cast departures, as Naoko
Mori and Burn Gorman left the show.

Season Three: All Fall Down

The Production Team

With Richard Stokes having left Torchwood to pursue other
opportunities, Peter Bennett was appointed to
take his place. Bennett had been a first assistant director on several
episodes of both Torchwood and Doctor Who.

The Story

Children Of Earth by Russell T
Davies, John Fay and James Moran, directed by Euros Lyn

Forty-four years ago, a mysterious alien race known only as “the
456” kidnapped a group of Scottish orphans. Now the 456 are
coming back, broadcasting the message of their return through every
child on the face of the Earth -- including Jack's grandson and Ianto's
niece and nephew. But Jack's ties to the events run deeper still,
causing forces within the British government to conspire against
Torchwood. Driven to the brink of desperation, with the entire world in
peril, Jack is forced to make the most terrible decision of his very
long life.

Ianto is killed by a virus unleashed by the 456, while an embittered
Jack departs Earth for the stars, seemingly marking the end of
Torchwood.

Making History

Torchwood completed its rise up the ranks of BBC broadcasting by
premiering on BBC1 with a season unprecedented in the history of the
Doctor Who franchise. The programme's third year on the air was
comprised of just a single story: Children Of Earth, a five-part
event which was broadcast over a single week. The risky experiment paid
off, as Torchwood attracted more attention than ever before.

Season Four: Miracle Day

The Characters

A rising star within the Central Intelligence Agency, Rex Matheson found himself saved from death by the
timely intervention of Miracle Day, and then thrust into an uneasy
alliance with Torchwood to uncover the conspiracy behind the
Miracle.

With Torchwood now a BBC/Starz co-production made chiefly in
Hollywood, its production hierarchy changed considerably for Season
Four. Russell T Davies and Julie Gardner remained executive producers,
joined by Jane Tranter, the executive
vice-president of BBC Worldwide Productions who had been instrumental in
the creation of Torchwood in her former role as the BBC's Head of
Fiction. Named co-executive producer was Vlad
Wolynetz of BBC Worldwide, while various scriptwriters and
directors also claimed an executive producer credit on individual
episodes. The programme's new producer was Kelly
Manners. He shared this credit on some episodes with Brian Minchin, who oversaw production in the UK.
Minchin had been an assistant producer on Children Of Earth and was also
the producer of The Sarah Jane Adventures.

One day, all over the world, death... stops. From CIA Agent Rex Matheson
to death row inmate Oswald Danes, injuries and disease that should be
fatal somehow fail to kill the victim. At the exact same time, an e-mail
is sent out to the CIA containing just a single word:
“Torchwood”. With the help of his analyst, Esther Drummond,
Rex tracks down Gwen Cooper, now in hiding on the coast of Wales with
Rhys and their baby, Anwen. But somebody else is on Gwen's trail,
forcing an explosive reunion with Captain Jack Harkness.

As Rex escorts Jack and Gwen to the United States, sinister elements
within the CIA mobilise to stop Torchwood before it can even begin to
investigate the Miracle. Esther finds herself on the run from those she
trusted, while Jack's newfound mortality is put to the test when he is
poisoned in mid-flight. Meanwhile, Jilly Kitzinger, a public relations
representative for pharmaceutical company PhiCorp, has designs on both
Oscar Danes and Dr Juarez. And, all over the world, the Miracle raises
questions of ethics and morality that threaten to fundamentally change
the nature of human society.

Even as they struggle to work as a team, Jack, Gwen, Rex and Esther
begin investigating the Miracle. A trail of clues leads them to a
warehouse containing a massive stockpile of Phi-Corp pharmaceuticals --
a cache the company began amassing more than a year before Miracle Day.
At the same time, Oswald Danes becomes the champion of a movement that
demands the deregulation of prescription drugs, an event which would
send Phi-Corp profits skyrocketing. It becomes clear that Phi-Corp knew
of the Miracle in advance -- but are they its cause, or merely its
beneficiaries?

Torchwood sets its sights on top secret data hidden in a Phi-Corp
installation in Los Angeles. Before they leave Washington, however,
Esther's decision to visit her sister -- whose psychological problems
have been exacerbated by the events following Miracle Day -- draws a
Phi-Corp assassin to their trail. Meanwhile, Oswald finds his status as
media sensation challenged by a conservative politician who advocates a
grim fate for the “living deceased”. And, in Wales, the next
stage in Phi-Corp's exploitation of the Miracle has very personal
consequences for the Torchwood team.

As the ill are moved into camps all across the world, the United Nations
announces that life has been redefined into three categories: Category 1
(the unrecoverable), Category 2 (the ill who will heal) and Category 3
(the healthy). In California, Rex and Esther are joined by Dr Juarez as
they infiltrate one of the camps in an effort to discover the fate of
the Category 1 patients. In Wales, Gwen and Rhys go undercover in an
attempt to rescue her ailing father. And as Oswald prepares to speak at
a massive “Miracle Rally”, Jack gives him one last
opportunity for redemption.

At the San Pedro Overflow Camp, Rex desperately tries to escape with
video footage revealing the truth about the Category 1 patients, even as
Esther's search for Dr Juarez places herself in danger. In Wales, Gwen
and Rhys find themselves racing against time to save Geraint Cooper from
incineration. And in Los Angeles, Jack confronts the Chief Operating
Officer of Phi-Corp, only to discover that the conspiracy behind Miracle
Day is vaster and deeper than he had previously believed. But even as
Torchwood strikes a blow against the Miracle, the forces working against
them draw ever closer.

With her family held hostage, Gwen kidnaps Jack and prepares to deliver
him to their enemies. In so doing, they discover that the Miracle has a
connection to Jack's past, and a man named Angelo Colasanto, whom he
first met in 1927 New York. In Angelo, Jack saw an opportunity to share
his adventures in much the same way that Rose healed the loneliness of
the Doctor's travels. But Angelo became horrified when he discovered the
nature of Jack's immortality. The result was one of the most terrible
days of Jack's life, with consequences that would echo all the way to
the present.

End Of The Road by Ryan Scott and
Jane Espenson, directed by Gwyneth Horder-Payton

In the home of Angelo Colasanto, the Torchwood team forges an uneasy
alliance with the CIA. They learn that the true force behind the Miracle
is a coalition of three families called Ablemarch, Costerdane and
Frines, who have erased themselves from the history books after
witnessing Jack's torture in 1928. But even as the Three Families close
in on Torchwood, Jack realises that Angelo has found a way to
counteract the Miracle, using technology recovered from the ruins of the
Hub. And as the world economy teeters on the brink of disaster, Oswald
and Jilly's path diverges suddenly and violently.

Two months after the Torchwood team was scattered across both sides of
the Atlantic, they are brought back together by none other than Oswald
Danes. Oswald has unwittingly unearthed a clue in Jilly Kitzinger's
files which leads Torchwood to conclude that the mysterious Blessing can
be found in two places, situated on diametrically opposite points on the
globe: Shanghai, China and Buenos Aires, Argentina. As the countries of
the world plunge into economic depression and political fascism,
Torchwood embarks on a final mission to stop the Miracle and save
mankind.

The Blood Line by Jane Espenson
and Russell T Davies, directed by Billy Gierhart

On opposite sides of the world, the Torchwood team finally comes face to
face with the Blessing. It is a seam of apparent nothingness which runs
through the heart of the planet and could be as old, connected in some
way to mankind's morphogenic field. This is the mechanism by which the
Three Families changed humanity, using Jack's blood to make the
population of the Earth immortal. But in order to reverse the Miracle,
all of the Torchwood members will have to stare death in the face... and
not all of them will survive the ordeal.

Making History

Torchwood took a bold step into new territory with its fourth
season, as the BBC explored co-production arrangements with American
partners. After being considered but rejected by the Fox network, which
had aired the 1996 Doctor Who TV
movie, only June 7th, 2010 it was announced that Torchwood Season
Four would be co-produced and aired on the Starz Entertainment cable
channel.

Russell T Davies saw this as an opportunity to take Torchwood not just
to America, but abroad, with a story spanning the UK, the United States,
Asia and South America. Like Children
Of Earth, Season Four would be comprised of a single story --
but this time it would be twice the length, fully ten episodes long.

The co-production arrangement dictated that Starz would premiere each
episode, with the BBC airing the same installment within the next week.
As such, Torchwood Season Four debuted Stateside, on July 8th,
2011. It began airing in Britain six days later, on July 14th.